1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to voice mail service. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method for providing voice mail service in an environment having multiple voice mail technology platforms.
2. Description of Related Art
Voice mail is an extremely useful business and personal tool that allow callers to leave voice messages when the called party is not available to take an incoming call directly. As such, voice mail has been implemented by many telephone carriers, both wireline and wireless, as an additional benefit for their subscribers.
In a typical wireless application, a call to a wireless subscriber is routed to the subscriber's home Mobile Switching Center (MSC). If the subscriber's wireless terminal is not on the network or if the subscriber does not respond to a call page over the Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN), the MSC forwards the call and information regarding the subscriber, including the subscriber's phone number, to a Network-based Voice Mail System (NVMS). The NVMS then records a message from the caller and stores the message in a “mailbox” associated with the subscriber's identity (e.g. phone number) for later retrieval by the subscriber.
A typical wireline application would mirror the wireless application using equivalent wireline telecommunication system elements.
Recently, with the development of Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), telephone carriers have proposed using MMS to deliver voice mail messages in the form of voice clips directly to the subscriber's MMS-capable terminal. The MMS-capable terminal could be either a wireless or wireline terminal. The voice mail message would then be stored on the memory of the MMS-capable terminal. Once the message is on the terminal, the user can access it whenever and wherever they want, without issues such as wireless coverage or airtime usage.
However, there are advantages and disadvantages that exist with respect to both NVMS and MMS voice mail service.
For instance, when there is a new message in a NVMS mailbox, the NVMS will generate a notification to alert the subscriber regarding the presence of the new message. Upon receiving the notification, the subscriber must-call into the NVMS, go through an identification and authentication process, and interact with the VMS before accessing the voice mail message. This process is confusing to some subscribers, as NVMS questions continually rank at the top of the list of reasons that subscribers call customer service. Delivery of voice mail messages in the form of voice clips directly to the subscriber's wireless terminal using MMS eliminates the identification, authentication and interaction process of NVMS.
Wireless service carriers often provide NVMS service at “no charge” and depend on subscriber air-time usage for accessing their NVMS mailbox to pay for the NVMS costs, including, for example, the purchase, maintenance, support and operation of the NVMS. Some subscribers never activate their NVMS mailbox, and others receive only a few messages per billing cycle, which does not allow the wireless carrier to recover the NVMS costs for that subscriber. With MMS voice mail service, voice mail messages are stored on the MMS terminal, thus eliminating the costs associated with NVMS.
However, MMS based voice mail service also has limitations and constraints that give rise to problems for subscribers and wireless carriers.
For instance, MMS terminals have limited storage capacity, which limits the number of voice mail messages that can be stored on the terminal. Thus, MMS based voice mail service is not practical for subscribers that receive a large number of voice mail messages on a regular basis. For subscribers that receive a large number of voice mail messages, NVMS provides the capacity to meet those needs.
Also, as mentioned earlier, wireless service carriers may depend on subscriber air-time usage for accessing their NVMS to pay for the NVMS costs. However, with MMS based voice mail service, there is no air-time usage to generate revenue and wireless carriers would either have to charge subscribers for voice mail message delivery, or absorb the cost. For low volume subscribers, the cost for MMS delivery of a few voice mail messages is low compared with the costs of NVMS service. But for high volume subscribers, the NVMS service is more economical for the wireless carriers and supports “no charge” service for the subscribers.
Neither NVMS voice mail service nor MMS based voice mail service meets all of the various described subscriber and carrier needs. Further, it is anticipated that as other technologies are developed and implemented for voice mail service, there will still be various needs that are better met by alternate technologies. Thus, there is a need for a system and method for providing voice mail service in an environment having multiple voice mail technology platforms, where the voice mail platform can be custom selected based on the various needs of the subscribers and the carriers.